Osborne’s budget is the work of a master tactician who has an eye on the next war

If there were ever a moment to silence his critics, for George Osborne it was this week's budget. The first Conservative budget in almost two decades, this document managed to simultaneously defy and meet expectations. A budget that increased basic wages for the lowest paid, cut taxes, welfare, and reduced the pace of deficit reduction, Osborne brought the Conservative party's entire armoured division and parked it on the front lawn of the Labour party, right on top of Ed Miliband's burial plot. Osborne's mission is to build the foundations for the lasting legacy of the government as being a pro-business, modern centrist party. Capitalising on the surprise victory in the general election, Osborne is setting out the blueprint for five years that could see him leading the Conservative party into the 2020 general election. For a man booed by the crowd at the paralympics in 2012, the last three years have seen a massive change in his fortunes. A haircut and losing a few pounds are nothing next to the effect of being credited for standing at the helm of the British economy as it turned the corner.

When George Osborne stood in for David Cameron at PMQs last month it was impossible not to acknowledge that for an understudy he gave an assured performance. Behind the scenes, Osborne has been involved in briefing and preparing Conservative leaders for PMQs for years, long enough to develop an understanding of the challenge. In Osborne, the Conservative party has a potential future leader who will have had ten years experience at the top of government, and who has the self-assuredness to step into the sometimes lonely and demanding top job. It would be no great surprise if a key architect of the Conservatives' 2015 victory led them to victory again in 2020. One of Osborne's gifts is in setting traps for his opponents, framing the debate in the most advantageous way for his position, and then in victory being unashamedly opportunistic in the plundering of good ideas. It is a deft mix of skill and ruthlessness that combined to make this budget one of the most intriguing in recent times.

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The Conservatives' adoption of a "living wage" in the months following the general election and the cuts to working tax credits look like a huge shift in the removal of state aid to low paid employment, but mask the reality that Osborne's definition of the living wage is not that of living wage campaigners. He has dressed the policy in the name, won begrudging praise from activists and campaigners, and stolen a march on the Labour party's minimum wage reforms offered at the election, which were by comparison unambitious and tepid. By pressing on the mistrust that voters felt for Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, David Cameron and George Osborne were able to box them into a position of being less radical and less interesting than they might otherwise have been, shifting the centre of the argument. In the months after gaining victory, while the Labour party struggles to pick itself back up, Osborne is able to redefine the very landscape on which the battle was won.

The planned clampdown on non-doms is another example of Osborne quietly lifting straight from the drawing board of his opponents. One of the Labour party's masterstrokes at the election (and there weren't many) was to put the Conservatives in a corner on non-doms, forced to defend a system that many saw as obviously unfair, and to which they could only apparently muster the argument that Ed Balls flip-flopped on supporting it. Osborne has seen the chink in the armour and is in the process of repairing it in time for the next election. The process of focusing on big issues during election times is referred to as "getting the barnacles off the boat" by strategist Lynton Crosby. Now that the hull has been taken out of the water for a few years, Osborne has the chance to sand off and fill in any holes that might have caused drag. Non-doms is just such an issue.

George Osborne's handling of the UK economy defied international and domestic expectations. It forced the IMF to eat their words, and it left Ed Balls with nothing to say. While the Labour party continues to fight about why they lost and who is least likely to lead them to failure again, free reign has been given to Osborne to stake out his position for the political skirmishes of the future. After Napoleon was exiled to Elba, the Duke of Wellington conducted a review of areas in continental Europe in which future battles might be fought. It was Wellington's research, scouting the territory, that gave him the crucial upper hand when Napoleon returned from exile to fight the battle of Waterloo. Wellington was more familiar with the shape of the land, just as Osborne is reshaping the political terrain. By the time the Conservative party comes to select David Cameron's successor, there is every prospect that Europe's financial woes will be ongoing, and voters will be able to compare the health of the UK economy with those of our eurozone neighbours.

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The man who is being largely left alone by his beaten opponents will have had ten years experience in the field, a potentially unstoppable tactician who has ensured with this budget that his side sets up camp on the high ground.